Catholic Fire

October 12 is the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar -- the Blessed Virgin Mary's first apparition in history. The Blessed Mother appeared to Saint James the Apostle, the brother of Saint John the Evangelist, on the bank of the river Ebro in Saragossa, Spain. Unlike every other recorded apparition, this one took place during the earthly life of the Mother of God. Our Lady of the Pillar is the patroness of Spain and all Hispanic peoples. Seven years after the death of Jesus, St. James reportedly traveled as far west as Spain to the village of Saragossa in northeast Spain. St. James became disheartened because of the failure of his mission. Tradition tells us that on January 2, 40 A.D. while he was deep in prayer, the Blessed Mother appeared to him and gave him a small wooden statue of herself and a column of jasper wood and instructed him to build a church in her honor: "This place is to be my house, and this image and column shall be the title and altar of the temple that y...

On August 22, we celebrate a beautiful Marian Feast -- the Queenship of Mary. This Liturgical Feast was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on October 11, 1954 through his Encyclical Letter Ad Caeli Reginam. The Catholic Church made this proclamation based upon the fact that whether in time of peace or in time of war, the faithful have ceaselessly offered prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. Following the dreadful damage and destruction of World War II, the Church turned its eyes towards Mary, the Heavenly Queen, in the hope of her protection. Mary has never failed those who have sought her intercession in prayer, placing their total trust in her. Mary’s queenship has its roots in Scripture.  At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. (Luke 1:32 -33) At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “Mother of my Lord.” (Luke 1:43) As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, Mary is close...

July 16 is the patronal feast of the Carmelites . The Order of Carmelites takes its name from Mount Carmel in Israel, which was the first place dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and where a chapel was erected in her honor before her Assumption into heaven. In the Old Testament, Mount Carmel was a holy place sanctified by the memory of Elijah and his followers - who fought for the rights of the true God 900 years before Christ. Christians would interpret Elijah's vision of the cloud rising from the Mediterranean sea as a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose Son would be the Messiah and Savior (1 Kings 18, 42-45). After the days of Elijah and Elisha other holy hermits lived on Mt. Carmel and led solitary, contemplative lives, praying and fasting. Along with the austere figure of Elijah, they looked for inspiration to the Mother of God. Her Latin title was "Virgo Dei Genitrix", which means "Virgin Mother of God". July 16th is also the feast of the ...

Today, June 27, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I have had a long-time devotion to Our Blessed Mother under many titles, but began praying to Our Lady of Perpetual Help early in my childhood and continue to pray for her intercession today. She is such a sweet mother who always asks Jesus to grant me that which will draw me closest to Him. The Icon The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is perhaps the oldest actual icon of the Blessed Virgin. According to tradition, St. Luke wrote an icon of Our Lady while she was still living in Jerusalem. When she saw the beautiful icon of herself holding the Child Jesus in her arms, she blessed both the artist and his work proclaiming, "My grace will accompany this icon." The passage of centuries has proven that Mary did not forget this promise. So numerous were the miracles and favors granted by means of this Holy Icon, Pope Innocent III in 1207 stated that Mary's soul seemed to have entered in...

By Jean M. Heimann December 10 is the feast day of Our Lady of Loreto, which commemorates the house in which Mary was born and where the Annunciation occurred. Tradition tells us that in 1291 this house was transported from the Holy Land to Dalmatia (present day Yugoslavia) by a band of angels! In Dalmatia, shepherds discovered the sudden appearance of a little house in a field. They informed the local priest, a cripple, who visited the house. While there, he received a vision about the house and was healed of his physical handicap. He was informed that St. Peter put the altar in the house and the figure of Mary (now known as Our Lady of Loreto) was carved by St. Luke.  A commission sent to the Holy Land learned that the house of Mary had, indeed, vanished, and the foundation left behind measured exactly the length and width of the house in Dalmatia which had miraculously appeared out of nowhere.     Angels moved the house two other times to protect it from pl...

Today is the patronal feast of the Carmelites. The Order of Carmelites takes its name from Mount Carmel in Israel, which was the first place dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and where a chapel was erected in her honor before her Assumption into heaven. In the Old Testament, Mount Carmel was a holy place sanctified by the memory of Elijah and his followers - who fought for the rights of the true God 900 years before Christ. Christians would interpret Elijah's vision of the cloud rising from the Mediterranean sea as a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose Son would be the Messiah and Savior (1 Kings 18, 42-45). After the days of Elijah and Elisha other holy hermits lived on Mt. Carmel and led solitary, contemplative lives, praying and fasting. Along with the austere figure of Elijah, they looked for inspiration to the Mother of God. Her Latin title was "Virgo Dei Genitrix", which means "Virgin Mother of God". July 16th is also the feast of the ...

Traditionally, today, June 8 is the Feast of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces . Here is a beautiful Litany to honor her and to ask for her intercession for a specific intention. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us. God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us. God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us. God the Holy Ghost, Have mercy on us. Holy Trinity, One God, Have mercy on us. Holy Mary, pray for us! Mother of God, and our Mother, pray for us! True Mother of the living, pray for us! Mother regenerating men in Christ unto God, pray for us! Mother of piety and of grace, pray for us! Mother of pardon and remission, pray for us! Partner in human redemption, pray for us! Recoverer of a lost world, pray for us! Recoverer of the ages, pray for us! Petitioner of all graces, pray for us! Suppliant all-powerful, pray for us! Advocate with thy Son for thy sons, pray for us! Obtainer ...

1.  Today, Friday, is the last day for my book giveaway Trusting God with St. Therese , the new book by popular spirituality writer Connie Rossini. Read my review and enter the drawing HERE before midnight tonight. 2. Speaking of books, this writer and author has a new fan page on FaceBook . Please "like" me HERE . 3.  The official release date for my new book, Seven Saints for Seven Virtues , is October 24, 2014. In the meantime, you can pre-order it online at Amazon or at Barnes and Noble. 4. This week I wrote about one of my favorite female Franciscan saints,  St. Clare of Assisi: Contemplative, Lover of the Eucharist, Miracle Worker. 5. St. Maximilian Kolbe is on the list of my favorite saints and I wrote about why he is so special to me. 6.  St. Jane Frances de Chantal was a charming, animated, energetic member of the aristocracy. Why would she leave that luxurious lifestyle and agree to found an order that served the poor? Learn more HER...

(Vatican Radio) Following a tradition laid out by his predecessors, Pope Francis celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception by travelling to Piazza di Spagna where he venerated the statue named for the Marian Feast. The celebration began with a reading from the book of Revelation in which Mary is described as a “woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and around her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1). The Holy Father then recited a prayer to the Immaculate Conception, in which he asked Our Lady to “awaken in us a renewed desire for holiness,” and to “make present all of the Gospel’s beauty” in our lives. He went on to ask Mary’s intercession in helping us remain attentive to the Lord’s voice, and to never be indifferent to the cry of the poor, the sick, the elderly, of children, and every human life. Before taking leave of the Piazza, the Holy Father greeted the sick and disabled who had gathered in the Square for the celebrations.After the cele...

Today, we celebrate a beautiful Marian Feast -- the Queenship of Mary. This special Liturgical Feast was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on October 11, 1954 through his Encyclical Letter Ad Caeli Reginam. The Catholic Church made this proclamation based upon the fact that whether in time of peace or in time of war, the faithful have incessantly offered prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. Following the tremendous destruction that occurred during World War II and considering the reality that the threat of a similar catastrophe filled the faithful with a great anguish, the Church turned its eyes towards Mary, the Heavenly Queen, in the hope of her protection. Mary has never failed those who have sought her intercession in prayer, placing their total trust in her. Mary’s queenship has its roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. (Luke 1:32 -33) At the Visita...

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary the day – one day after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The proximity of both celebrations reflects the deep connection between the Heart of Jesus and the Heart of His Mother. The connection between the Hearts of Jesus and Mary was prophesied by Simeon at the Presentation in the Temple of Jerusalem. In Luke 2:35, we read: “and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” The fulfillment of this prophesy is found in John 33-34: “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” It was at the piercing of Christ’s Heart at His death, then, that Mary's Hea...

Today we commemorate  Our Lady of Good Counsel. On the Feast of Saint Mark, the Evangelist, April 25 1467, the people of Genazzano, Italy witnessed a marvelous sight. A cloud descended upon an ancient church dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel. When the cloud disappeared, an image of Our Lady and the Child Jesus was revealed which had not been there before. The image, on a paper-thin sheet, was suspended miraculously. Soon after the image's appearance many miracles were attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Because of this, Pope Paul II ordered an investigation and the results have been preserved. It was later discovered that the very same image had been seen in a church dedicated to the Annunciation in Scutari, Albania. The image in this church was said to have arrived there in a miraculous manner. Now, the image had been transported from Albania miraculously to avoid sacrilege from Moslem invasion. A commission of inquiry determined that a portr...

The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord celebrates the coming of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to announce to her the special mission God had chosen for her in being the mother of His only Son. The Annunciation heralds the beginning of our salvation. By Mary's obedient "Fiat" the earth has become heaven. "In Jesus, God has placed in the midst of barren, despairing mankind, a new beginning which is not a product of human history but a gift from above" (Pope Benedict XVI). All that our heart cries out for became flesh in Mary's wound. When we repeat the words of the angel by praying the Hail Mary, the word of God germinates in our soul. Christianity is this never-ending event of encounter with God made present in the maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "What came about in bodily form in Mary, the fullness of the godhead shining through Christ in the Blessed Virgin, takes place in a similar way in every soul that has been made pure....

As my regular readers know, today is a special day for me, as it marks the 16th anniversary of my Marian consecration. Today is the feast of  Our Lady of of Lourdes -- the anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to St. Bernadette Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Mother appeared to a poor, uneducated, sickly fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) 18 times in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes, called “de Massabielle”. On March 25, the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1858, she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Because the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been officially proclaimed less than four years earlier, and Bernadette could not have even known of its existence, when Bernadette repeated the words, it gave credibility to her apparitions. It was confirmation from heaven that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was in...

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Ransom also known as Our Lady of Mercy. The Blessed Virgin appeared in 1218 in separate visions to St. Peter Nolasco, St. Raymund of Penafort, and James, king of Aragon, asking them to found a religious order dedicated to freeing Christian captives from the barbarous Saracens or Moors, who at that time held a great part of Spain.  On August 10, 1218, King James established the royal, military and religious Order of our Lady of Ransom (first known as the Order of St. Eulalia, now known as the Mercedarian Order ), with the members granted the privilege of wearing his own arms on their breast. Most of the members were knights, and while the clerics recited the divine office in the commanderies, they guarded the coasts and delivered prisoners. This pious work spread everywhere and produced heroes of charity who collected alms for the ransom of Christians, and often gave themselves up ...

'The Birth of the Virgin', fresco by Juan de Borgoña, Cathedral of Toledo, c. 1495 Let us celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary; let us worship her Son, Christ the Lord. Each Year, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on September 8. Usually the church celebrates the feast day of a saint on the date of their death, which is actually the day remembered as their birth into everlasting life. Mary, however, was conceived without sin as a special grace because God had selected her to become the Mother of His Son. Her birth is a cause for great joy as it is considered the "dawn of our salvation" (Pope Paul VI, Marialis Cultus,1972.) Although there is no reference to Mary's birth in the Sacred Scriptures, the names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, appear in the Protoevangelium of James (5:2), which is an apocryphal writing from the late 2nd century. According to this account, Joachim and Anna were also beyond the years of chi...

Today, we are commemorating a beautiful Marian Feast, that of the Queenship of Mary. This special Liturgical Feast was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on October 11, 1954 through his Encyclical Letter "Ad Caeli Reginam." The Holy Catholic Church made this proclamation based upon the fact that whether in time of peace or in time of war, the faithful have incessantly offered prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. Following the tremendous destruction that occurred during World War II and considering the reality that the threat of a similar catastrophe filled the faithful with a great anguish, the Church turned its eyes towards Mary, the Heavenly Queen, in the hope of her protection. Mary has never failed those who have sought her intercession in prayer, placing their total trust in her. Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. (Luke 1:32...

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates her being taken up body and soul into heaven when her earthly title was finished. It first began to be celebrated as a feast day in the Eastern Church after the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431) proclaimed Mary the Mother of God. By the sixth century, the feast celebrated Mary’s Dormition, “her falling asleep”. The western church began to celebrate this feast around 650. The Church’s teaching on the Assumption was formally proclaimed a doctrine by Pope Pius XII in 1950. In today’s society, many idolize sensuality, materialism, and self-indulgence. In contrast, the celebration of the feast of the Assumption Our Blessed Virgin Mary turns our eyes away from these temporary, earthly attachments and directs our focus on the dignity and destiny of our human body and the beauty and dignity of womanhood. It turns our eyes upon the true life which awaits us beyond the grave – eternal life. May we take heart that one day our bodies and souls...

Via Sarah Reinhard at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering : In December, we will honor Our Lady of Guadalupe with our Mary Moments carnival. We welcome your feast day celebration ideas, traditions, recipes, or reflections. Do you have a special devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe? Have you felt a special bond with this image of Mary? Can you take a few moments to share it with us as we assemble a bouquet for Our Mother on this special feast day? Submissions are due by December 12, using the online form or by emailing me at peerybingle [at] gmail [dot] com. If you don't have a blog, you can still participate! I'll post your entry as a guest post here . Mary Moments: Honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe will be live on December 15.

"God inspired in the heart of the pure Virgin Mary His own intense love for humility, and abhorrence of pride. She possessed, even from her infancy, a far greater horror of pride and ambition, and a far deeper love for humility than all the saints together. It was the first virtue that she practices. She abased and humbled herself before all. She esteemed herself, and would have been happy to be treated by others, as the last of the creatures. By marvelous radiance of her Immaculate Conception, she beheld herself susceptible to the guilt of the children of Adam, except that God miraculously preserved her, and she considered that she might have been capable of all the sins in the world, whose source is original sin. It was this humility which attracted to her the countless graces which rendered her worthy to be the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth. Give thanks to Almighty God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, and offer Him all the glory that this Maiden a...